


I'll go if you go if you're cool with that

by CoinToYourWitcher



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Age Difference, All song fics all the time, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Beach Sex, Ben is 20, Bendemption, Demisexual Ben Solo, F/M, Guardian-Ward Relationship, Guilt, Hypochondria, Incomplete sentences and stream of consciousness are my jam, Kidnapping, Loss of Virginity, Orphan Rey (Star Wars), Pilot Ben Solo, Protective Ben Solo, Rey is 16, Reylo - Freeform, Secret Island, Smuggler Ben Solo, Soft Ben Solo, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:01:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24956524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoinToYourWitcher/pseuds/CoinToYourWitcher
Summary: A long-lost cousin steps up to claim Rey after she has spent ten years in the foster system. He’s a young pilot and it doesn't take her long to figure out he's not her cousin.A sweet kidnapping story.The Spotify Playlist
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 64
Kudos: 203





	1. I'll pray you wanna get close to me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **I'll pray you wanna get close to me  
>  I'll give it some give it some give it some time  
> But I think that we're supposed to be  
> I'll go if you go  
> If you're cool with that**
> 
> Groceries by Mallrat

[ ](https://ibb.co/PtgjLMD)

Kylo was so tall he had to _bend over_ a little to look Rey in the eye.

“Alright, Skittles, is this all your stuff?” He asked, picking up her one duffel bag. 

Rey felt like he was performing, pretending he saw her as a little girl so her foster parents wouldn’t be afraid to let her leave with him. 

Little did he know, they didn’t give two shits what happened to her.

And what was the rush? He hadn’t even come inside and her foster parents had made her clean the house all weekend for when he came. 

She wouldn’t have minded his hurry if he had looked excited or something, instead of treating it like a pit stop. Like one of those Amazon delivery guys who jogged up to the porch and straight back to their van. She had always imagined her parents coming to get her, running into their arms. A teary-eyed group hug.

“Yep, that’s it,” she replied, smiling at the nickname. Ha. Skittles. There was _that_ at least. Maybe he was just trying to cheer her up because she looked nervous. Adults often tried to cheer her up, but no one had ever nicknamed her after her snacks before. Good tactic.

She watched Kylo shake her foster’s hands and lift the duffel over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing. 

Rey just got the duffel bag _yesterday,_ when her fosters inexplicably bought it to replace her typical trash bag. They never bought Rey _anything_. She gave them a half-hearted, wordless, goodbye hug. 

_Everyone_ was performing today.

Hailing a Lyft at the sidewalk--so the driver would be able to spot them amongst the row houses that all looked the same--Kylo set her bag down while they waited. They were going to a local “non-towered airfield” where he had a small plane to take her...somewhere. 

Her foster parents were _really bad_ at remembering information when it came to Rey. And she was too embarrassed to let him know she was following him with no idea where they were going. She’d gladly go anywhere as long as it was far away from Tacoma, Washington.

This seemed like a fresh start. And she didn’t want to tell him about her life before today. Here with the alcoholics, the verbal abusers before that, the religious extremists before them.

“If you’re my cousin, where have you been for the last ten years?” Rey finally asked him. Normally a guardian had to be fifteen years older than the child, but since he was family and of age, it didn’t matter.

She had expected to age out in two years, like most teenagers, not get claimed by a tall, dark, handsome, off-limits cousin who wasn’t even old enough to buy a legal drink.

“Maybe I was looking for _you_ ,” he said with a closed-lipped smile. 

That could have been flirting if their parents hadn’t been related. Christ. She didn’t even know which side of her family he was from.

“Did you know me? When I was little?” She asked, watching his face closely for signs of deception.

“Nope, first time meeting you,” he said, seemingly very interested in the approaching Lyft.

“What happened to my parents?” She asked, when they were in the backseat, where he could barely fit his long legs. The driver’s eyes flashing back to look at them, surprised to hear such an important conversation taking place on his twenty minute ride.

“Um...they died. Car crash,” he said, clearly making that one up off the top of his head. He tried to make the pause seem like it was out of empathy, rather than invention.

Rey was starting to wonder if Kylo was really her cousin. But her social worker seemed to think everything checked out. 

When they got to the airfield, she practically had to run to keep up with his long strides, even though he was encumbered by her duffel. He set it down gently, despite there being nothing whatsoever delicate or valuable inside. 

Unlocking what looked like a huge storage unit, he lifted the door, which rolled up noisily.

Rey took a step back as he started _pulling a plane out_ by the middle of the propeller. 

“Wow, isn’t it heavy?” She asked. 

“No, this one’s not bad,” he said, his voice strained, taking one well-earned step at a time until the four-person plane was out of the garage-thing.

Walking around to the co pilot/passenger side, admiring the black and red paint, Rey watched him throw the bag in through the pilot’s side and duck under the plane to help her get in, because it was very high up.

“There’s stairs in the hangar, but I’ll just-,” he said, lacing his fingers to give her a leg up. She stepped into his hands and he lifted until she practically flew into the seat, laughing.

“Thanks,” she said, excited now, despite her worry that he was awfully young for a pilot.

Kylo waited until her feet and purse were all inside, then closed the door for her. She shifted in the seat, her legs sticking to the vinyl, listening to him close the loud garage door, then appear next to her, clambering in. He put on some headphones with a microphone and handed her a pair too.

“Testing,” he said, the sound magnified, buzzing in her ears. His deep, slightly-goofy voice was somehow intimate with the headphones.

She gave him a sheepish thumbs up and buckled in, after seeing him do the same.

He started pointing out all the different parts of the dash controls, even letting her ‘taxi’ the plane with the steering wheel on her side. 

“I’m lined up. I radioed so they know I’m taking off, which runway I’m on, which direction I’m flying, and all that. We did the runup, we did the mack check. Now I’m going to push on the push knob,” he said as the plane accelerated. “See, just like a car. Now when it feels like we’re going fast, like down the highway, we’re going to pull, pull on the steering wheel with me.”

Rey pulled it downwards like he was doing and felt their front wheels lift off, then they weren’t touching the ground at all. 

“I’ve never flown before!” Rey told him, holding the microphone still and watching him cringe at her excessive volume. “Sorry,” she laughed, looking back out the window as they went through the fog of cloud cover that lurked over Washington.

They cut through to the other side, blindingly white as the clouds reflected the sun. The cockpit lit up with light, everything looking shiny and new. She wondered how he afforded a plane like this.

After a few minutes he pointed to the screen, “We’re at four thousand now, GPS is looking good, now we’re in cruise flight.” And just like that, he took his hands off the steering wheel and relaxed in his seat, holding his phone up as if checking for service.

Rey couldn’t stop smiling and he could see her out of the corner of his eye. Every time she glanced at him, he was on the verge of a smile too. The clouds dissipated and she could see the ground: forests, roads, rivers. Little cars with people in them going about a normal day while she had _this_ one. 

Kylo plugged his phone in and music started playing in their headphones, since neither of them were talking. 

The peaceful music somehow made everything even dreamier and she felt like she could sleep, but she didn’t want to. She had stayed up the better part of the night, too excited about her liberation to close her eyes. She regretted that now.

Raising his arm to rest on the window, Rey noticed that his left arm was tan, even a little red. She pulled her sunscreen out of her bag and held it up, giving him an asking look but he shook his head. 

“Men are twice as likely to get skin cancer as women,” she warned him, setting it in the cup holder between them. “You’ve got pale skin and beauty marks, so you’re high risk,” she informed him, crossing her legs.

He swallowed, watching her legs, then said, “You’re not scared of flying, but you’re scared of skin cancer.”

“More than 20,000 people die of skin cancer every year. Less than a thousand die in plane crashes,” she said, uncrossing her legs, to see if he looked again. He did. She’d bet a million dollars Kylo wasn’t her cousin.

“Alright Ms. WebMD, what are you, some kind of hypochondriac?” He joked.

“You like giving me nicknames, don’t you? Is there something wrong with my name?” Rey asked, boldly.

He smiled, looking down at his phone and scrolling, as if digging through an email. 

Rey waited, wondering what he was doing. He set his phone down and looked out the window for a second. “How old are you, Rey?”

“Sixteen. Wait. Did you just read an email to remember my name?” Rey asked, unbuckling her seat belt.

He grabbed his phone as she ripped her headphones off and reached for it. “No, I was just checking my email!”

“You liar! Who ARE you, because you’re definitely not my cousin!” Rey screamed, since she didn’t have the microphone anymore. The plane engines and the sound of the wind attempted to drown out her voice, so he pulled his headphones off too. 

“It’s fine, it’s like, a surprise!” He said loudly. As if finding out who was going to be taking care of her was a birthday present. 

Rey stumbled, still standing, looking for something to throw at him and settling on her sunscreen still sitting on the console.

Instead, she poured some in her palm and grabbed his one pink arm, applying the cream from top to bottom, using her frustration as an excuse to give him some god damn sun protection.

“You are so weird,” he laughed, watching her rubbing it in until it was invisible, his right hand steadying her leg so she didn’t fall.

The mood changed when she got to his fingers, when she slowed down and pulled on each one. More times than she needed to, both of them watching her hands move. Suggestively.

It suddenly felt like they were very alone together and his grip on her leg was tightening.

After a few seconds, she stopped, her face growing hot as she looked down at his gaze. He looked a little cross and she wasn’t expecting that. She was just trying to help him.

She felt the hand on her leg move but neither of them looked down as he skimmed his knuckles over her smooth leg, moving upwards, making her heart beat faster than the turn of the propeller.

Kylo’s right hand continued sliding toward her inner thigh, through the gap of her shorts, brushing her panties, watching her face the whole time, neither of them breathing now.

Rey’s mouth opened as his finger moved past the cotton barrier, touching her _there_. She was afraid to move or speak, or do anything that might break the spell, settling for blinking down at him, leaning subconsciously. 

“The age of consent in Washington is 16,” Rey said, barely loud enough for him to hear her.

His eyes flicked to the dash computer. “We’re in Idaho.”

Rey didn’t know what the laws were in each state. And she didn’t care.

He slid two fingers straight into her and her mouth opened wider at the feel of them. Rough, thick, stretching and filling her where she needed it most. She’d never felt like this, _down there_ , not even when she was alone at night. This was something...intense. With his brown eyes locked on hers and his hand on her, gentle, testing, his face _confused_ , as if his body was doing this thing and he was just watching. 

He slowly pulled his hand out of her shorts leg and she almost whined. She was swollen and hot now and needed more. But she watched as he held his fingers up between the two of them, rubbing them together, slick, glistening. She was embarrassed then, and sat down.

Kylo wiped his hand off on his blue-jeaned thigh, breathing again, and pulling his headphones up off his neck. 

Rey grabbed hers too, in case he wanted to talk, buckling herself back in.

“I can’t do this,” he said, suddenly, turning the steering wheel until she realized they were heading back the way they’d come.

Was he taking her home?

“Kylo! What’s happening? Where are we going?” She said into the microphone, but he wouldn’t look at her.

“That’s not my name.”


	2. I did something wrong yesterday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **You say I did something wrong  
>  Yesterday  
> You're right  
> Of course  
> I'm making a fool of myself  
> In every way**
> 
> Swill by Jonsi

Ben flicked his microphone up so she wouldn’t hear his erratic breathing. 

“Are you crying!?” She asked, panicking now. 

She must be so disoriented by this point. After he touched her, changed course, and admitted he’d lied about his name.

“It’s okay,” he mouthed, meaning her future. 

Her entire future. That was now in his hands. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Are you taking me _back_?” She asked, crying herself now. 

He lowered his microphone back down. “No, those pieces of shits took a bribe for you. So did your fucking social worker. I wouldn’t give them a dog.” 

Also, someone else would come by in a week and get her, if he took her back. It wasn’t like he wasn’t replaceable.

“You _paid_ for me!?” She screamed, deafening in his ears.

“No! I’m just transport. I do transport,” he clarified, feeling guilty, despite his role. Because he knew something shady was going down. His boss never paid him _this much_ to give someone a ride. So much. Enough to finish construction on the house. 

He’d never been asked to do this type of thing before.

“I’m being _trafficked_ , aren’t I?” She cried, her face screwing up, her body turned in her seat completely now, facing him.

After a long pause, Ben answered. “I don’t know.” 

His father would’ve been so ashamed.

She let out a sob and he cut her off, “It doesn’t matter anyway, I changed my mind.”

She stopped talking to him after that, curling into a ball and crying herself unconscious after an hour. A relief, honestly, because he was already close to a panic attack, trying to figure out what to do with her. He could only think of one place to take her where she couldn’t call the cops and The Order wouldn’t find her.

\-----------------------------------

Ben was surprised when she didn’t wake up during the landing. She’d been asleep for two hours straight.

Tossing her bag to the ground and jumping down, he pulled the stairs up to her side and opened her door, giving her leg a poke. When she didn’t stir, he unbuckled her and picked her up, backing slowly down the stairs, doing an awkward squat to get her bag too, and fumbling his way in the dark, struggling when he got to the deck stairs and sliding door, but finally made it inside and laid her on his bed. 

He only had the one bed. He never brought anyone else here. Pulling the covers over her and tugging off her shoes, he went to the closet and found a new quilt, grabbing the other pillow off the bed and crashing on the wood floor.

It wasn’t comfortable, but it felt so good to finally stretch out, after being in the plane all day, that he was asleep in minutes.

The sound of birds woke him up, so many of them on the island. He sat up to make sure she was still there and saw the little rise in the covers that was her.

He took a shower, charging his phone, then decided she might not wake up for some time, and started work on the far side of the house where she hopefully wouldn’t be bothered by the sound of the staple gun.

It was almost noon when he spotted her, standing on his deck, looking around at the view. Tall pines, jutting rocks, moss grass, a beach that couldn’t make up it’s mind if it wanted to be gray sand or smooth stones.

She’d changed her clothes, now in a new pair of shorts and a white hoodie. She looked at him when the sound of his gun stopped, then walked around to his side, squinting up at him as he sat on the frame of the unfinished section, his legs dangling.

“Where are we?” She asked, still angry from yesterday.

“It’s an island, near the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve in British Columbia,” Ben said, setting his gun down so he wouldn’t drop it.

“We’re in Canada?” She said, rhetorically, sounding less pissed. “What’s your real name?”

“Ben,” he smiled, wiping his hands on his jeans. But that reminded him of yesterday and his smile faltered.

“I ate some of your cereal, Ben,” she said. “I’m going to go down to the beach. Can we talk when you’re done?”

“Yeah, I’ll be down soon,” he promised, even though he was dreading it, discussing his almost-decision to trade a person for money.

He watched her walk down the deck stairs to the beach, picking up rocks along the way and throwing them as hard as she could into the Pacific. 

Sliding between the boards, he clung for a second, before dropping to the deck. 

She heard the sound and turned, but continued chucking rocks, shedding her hoodie on a driftwood log. 

When he was close, she started talking without turning to see if he was listening. “Have you ever thought that if you throw a rock into the ocean, you’re probably the last human being to touch that rock until the end of time?”

Ben laughed. He thought she was doing it out of anger.

“Well, not if I go get it,” he said, shucking his T-shirt off and running into the freezing cold waves. He was hot from roofing, so it was refreshing and it wouldn't be so bad once he was numb. He would have taken off his black jeans, but he didn’t want to be indecent. After yesterday. 

He stopped at his waist and dipped under, grabbing a rock off the seafloor. Shaking his head once, he held up the rock, pretending it was the one she’d thrown.

“Here you go,” he said, throwing the rock back towards her and watching her laugh. Amazing that she could laugh, given the state of things. 

“What do you transport?” She asked, seriously, clicking two rocks together in her hands.

  
“What do you think?” He asked her sardonically.

“Probably drugs,” she said and he nodded. She was walking out towards him, apparently indifferent to his chosen career.  
  


“It’s really pretty here,” she said, the water almost up to her shorts when a wave finished the job, soaking her all the way up to her bellybutton. She didn’t seem to care about that either.

She turned back to the house, tucked in the trees. “How did you get all the supplies out here to build that?”

“Oh, I didn’t build it, it was mostly my dad,” Ben said. “He brought everything by boat, it’s docked around in the cove.”

“Where’s your dad?” She asked, but he splashed her as she turned back around.

With a laughing shriek, she ran for the shore, but tripped and went under, her face coming up laughing as he pulled her. “Christ it’s cold!” She screamed, trying to right her footing, and pulling him half down too as a wave hit. 

Somewhere between becoming half-drowned flotsam, she kissed him, even though his ears were full of water and they were covered in sand and freezing. He kissed her back, glad she didn’t hate him, because he liked her a lot and he’d never done this before. With anyone. He’d never wanted to until yesterday, when she did that fucking thing with the sunscreen.

He drug her by the arms out of the water, well, mostly out, and leaned down, kissing her again, finding a rhythm, her tongue warming his. She made a little noise and it was the signal his body was waiting for, stopping to unbutton his jeans while she did the same with her shorts, trying to pull them down her legs without kneeing him anywhere important.

Within seconds, he drove himself into her, both of them gasping and cold as a far-reaching wave hit them, when his head was down too, his hair dripping in her face as he thrust, no amount of nature stopping him now. 

She gripped his arms for dear life and he felt like he was going to pass out she felt so good, hot and slick and _tight_ around him. Every pump warmed his body, even though he was cold and tense and half-naked and wet, as if his heart was working overtime.

He didn’t know if he was going too hard, but he knew he wasn’t going to last, not with the grip her pussy had on him. Not with the way she arched and whined. Not with the way he could see her nipples through her wet shirt. 

Raising himself up, his eyes shut tight, mid-groan, he managed to ask gently, pleadingly, “I’m going to come. Can I come?” 

Her response came too late, right as he poured into her, deep and amazing and home. “What do you mean?”

“What?” He asked, opening his eyes. Her face was red and her mouth was open, her lips full and pink and he wanted to kiss her again, but he couldn’t believe what she’d just said.

“I don’t know what that means,” she said, swallowing, completely unaware of what he’d just done. 

Couldn’t she feel it?

“You don’t know what ‘come’ means?” He said, horrified now, pulling out. _Oh my god, Ben._

She searched for her shorts, her hair a sandy mess, sticking to her cheeks and neck.

“I thought you’d done this before,” Ben said, thinking of how her fingers _stroked_ his yesterday, buttoning himself, too ashamed to look at her, already planning, now that he knew he needed to fly to the mainland and get a fucking Plan B pill. 

“No and I-I just. I just didn’t know that term. I only see friends at school…I don’t have an iPhone. I use the library and school computers! How am I supposed to know shit like that?” She cried, finally clothed again.

This was not how he pictured his first time. He felt dirty. Ethically and physically.

“I am such an idiot, Rey, I’m sorry,” he said, when she stood too. “Come inside, I’m going to have to make a trip out.”


	3. I'm drinking whiskey out the bottle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Well I had such great plans for the night  
>  Now I'm drinking whiskey out the bottle  
> You gave me such a beautiful fright  
> Now I'm not thinking about tomorrow  
> You remind me of the sky  
> There goes my sorrow**
> 
> Water pt 1 by Jake Wells

Ben was waiting for her when she got out of the shower. 

“I’ll be back in probably five hours, so you can watch TV or read, if you want,” he said, pointing in the general directions of rooms she’d already located that morning while sleuthing around. 

When she didn’t respond, he waited. Usually when she didn’t talk people liked that. But Ben actually expected her to say something.

“Can I come?” She asked, a little embarrassed to use the phrase he used...earlier. The one that caused the confusion. She changed the sentence. “Where are you going? I can be ready in five minutes.” All she needed was to find her other pair of dry shoes, some socks, and grab her hoodie she forgot at the beach. She was pretty sure her panties washed away. During.

“Oh, yeah, you can go, I didn’t think about that. Just used to doing everything…”

“If you’re cool with that,” she added, feeling like a burden already.

“No, please, get ready. Come with me,” he said, stepping back as if he was blocking her way to her things. “Um. I was going to do a _drop off_ , if that doesn’t bother you?”

“Like you’ve got drugs in the plane?” She asked, trying not to sound judgmental.

He nodded, biting his lip. Like he didn’t enjoy doing it.

“I don’t mind,” she said, sitting on the bed to pull her socks on.

“If you’re coming, maybe we could just do _all_ the drop offs. I have to do Seattle, Spokane, and Helena, Montana. At some point this week,” he said. “And since I’m fucking over my boss’s boss by not bringing you, we could just keep the money.” He was pacing now, looking on edge. 

It must be a lot of money.

“Won’t they come after you?” She asked, thinking ‘us’, but not wanting to be presumptuous. For all she knew, he might leave her the first chance he got.

“Well, no one knows about this place,” he said. “That’s why my dad bought it in my mother’s name.”

Rey smiled, seeing a path forward. A really nice path. One where they might live here in their own little world, together, with money so he wouldn’t have to transport anymore and risk jail.

“Let’s do it,” she said, “Look, I don’t even need to pack.”

\------------------------------------------

  
  


“No! You’re doing great! Don’t panic now, pull pull pull!” Ben laughed, his hands off the steering wheel, as he let Rey pull down on the copilot wheel for takeoff.

“There’s not enough runway!” She screamed, seeing the ocean approaching and the front wheels hadn’t left the ground yet.

He laughed as they left the concrete at the last second, before the drop to the rocky surf. His hands dropped back down to his wheel, but he didn’t stop smiling. “See. Easy.”

“That was a _very_ short runway,” Rey said, looking back at the island. It was L-shaped and she could see the cove with the boat. 

“Well, it was the only island long enough to even consider landing a plane on. And pouring that concrete took us weeks,” Ben said, remembering. 

“You still haven’t told me what happened to your dad,” Rey said, watching him entering Seattle into their GPS.

“Story for another time, maybe,” Ben said, his face stern all of a sudden.

Rey looked out her window at the ocean, gray-blue and mesmerizing in it’s vastness. 

“I’d never been to the ocean until yesterday,” Rey told him. “I think drowning would be a scary way to die, though. 320,000 people a year.”

Ben reached between his legs and pulled a folded and deflated yellow life preserver out from beneath his seat. 

“Nice,” Rey said, finding hers and setting it in her lap. Just in case. 

Ben plugged his phone into the console so they could listen to music again, the same serene playlist. 

She imagined Ben flying alone, listening to his music, riding the clouds like a white road. As pleasing as the scenario was, it would be lonely too. To be so often disconnected from the rest of the world.

After an hour, Ben turned the music down. “The Olympic mountain range on the Washington coast is coming up, then it’s just fifteen minutes to Seattle.”

Rey looked down as they passed over the beach; gray sand like his island, rocky outcroppings, streams, then green grass, roads, houses, and a line of blue, snow-capped mountains that seemed to reach for the plane.

“Do you want to stay in Seattle tonight? I know a nice hotel,” Ben said, looking out his window.

Rey was happy to drag out their adventure. Spokane was on the other side of the state and she’d only been to Seattle a few times, despite it’s close proximity to Tacoma.

“Yeah, let’s stay,” she said, smiling. She wondered if he was getting one room or two. And if he did get one room, if it would have one big bed or two.

She could barely see Ben’s face, but she could tell he was smiling.

“You’re very go-with-the-flow, aren’t you?” Ben said. “Like, something bothers you for five seconds, then you’re over it.”

Thinking for a moment, Rey realized he was probably right. She had wanted to give him a hard time for originally planning to transport her like one of his boxes of drugs in the back, but she wanted him to like her. Because she liked him and he’d changed his mind. It was also the age difference. He knew how to fly a plane and build a house and that made him seem even older, so it was hard not to follow his lead.

“I’m used to change,” she said.

“Well I hope you’re used to a challenge, because I’m going to have you land the plane,” he laughed.

\-------------------------------------

Rey was still smiling when they checked into The Hotel Theodore, apparently named after the former president, judging by the giant, antique red and yellow Edison bulb sign on the roof that read “ROOSEVELT’. The building was vintage, with contemporary elements, everything smaller than she’d thought it would be.

In the elevator on the way up to their _one room_ , Rey felt like she was nervously babbling, “I can’t believe I landed the plane. That was even scarier than takeoff, to be honest. Did you know Roosevelt died of a blood clot? 100,000 people a year.”

“Are you going to be okay here by yourself while I run out?” He asked, probably wondering what was wrong with her.

Honestly, they’d _done it_ already, she didn’t know why she was nervous. Maybe because the first time she hadn’t seen it coming. They were just playing and then it turned into that.

“Oh, yeah, I was just worried about you. With the drugs,” she lied, whispering the last sentence.

Ben glanced up at the camera in the elevator. “Why don’t we call it ‘chocolate’ from now on?”

“Oh, can you get me some chocolate while you’re out?” Rey asked. She was starving.

Ben laughed. “I’ll give you some money for the vending machine and you can order room service. And I’ll get that thing from the pharmacy on my way back.”

“What thing?” Rey asked, confused. They hadn’t talked about a thing.

“A pill that keeps you from, you know, getting pregnant,” Ben said, quietly.

Rey scoffed, “Why? I’m on the pill.”

“You are?” He asked.

“Yeah, I go to a free clinic. It prevents osteoporosis,” Rey added.

“You are so weird,” he said, looking relieved, running a hand through his hair.

They swiped into their hotel room - two beds - and Ben handed her a fifty dollar bill before leaving to make his drop off with a package the size of a shoe box.

Rey picked her bed and sprawled out on the comforter, before sitting up and looking out the window at Puget Sound and the lit up tourist wheel. She could almost see Pike Place Market. Back on the bed, she dug through a food menu and decided on a baked potato with non-dairy butter, because she didn’t want breast cancer, and ordered using the phone in the room.

She was too antsy to watch a movie, so she started drawing a bath in the small bathroom, planning to shave everything lower than her neck in the event that they _did it_ again. Wow, she was nervous. 

Remembering what Hollywood had taught her, she bent down to examine the glass-doored mini fridge and pulled out five micro bottles of liquor and a can of Coke.

This should help with nerves.

Sitting in the cozy tub with her stash, she sipped at each bottle and chased it with the Coke, then scrubbed herself while her throat burned. After tasting each one, she decided she liked vodka the best, but soon ran out and finished her second favorite, whiskey.

By the time someone knocked at the door, she’d forgotten she ordered food and grabbed a towel to wrap around her middle while she let the surprised bellhop inside. He set the tray down on the desk and she paid him, getting small bills back so she could confront the vending machine for dessert. She even tipped him a couple bucks, like a savvy adult, when the truth was, she’d never held a fifty dollar bill in her life.

By the time Ben came back, she was full and her hair was blow-dried and she was lotioned and hairless, teeth brushed and ready to ‘go with the flow’. Ben, on the other hand, looked drained, kicking off his shoes and flopping into _his_ bed, smelling like cigarette smoke.

“How did it go?” Rey asked, sitting cross-legged on her bed across from him.

Ben smiled, reached into his back pocket without getting up, and tossed her his wallet. It was fat with 100’s. 

“Oh my god,” Rey laughed. “What kind of chocolate did you give them?!”

His smile faded as he pulled a pillow under his head and closed his eyes. “Heroin.”


	4. Don’t we love money money

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In lust we trust  
>  There's a hunger for the power  
> And it's warm, warm touch  
> And young girls and champagne  
> In private planes  
> Live it up live it up live it up  
> What's a little oil in the water if it means  
> Money money makes the world go round  
> Don't we love money money**
> 
> Money money by Transviolet, Sleeping Lion

“I’m on my way now, I’ve got her,” Ben said, holding his phone in front of his mouth, and looking at Rey. They had just entered cruise flight after departing the small Seattle airport.

“Can she hear you right now?” Snoke, his boss asked. Ben had never met him in person, but he could recognize his voice anywhere. 

“No, she’s dead asleep in the back,” he lied. 

Rey smiled, uneasy. 

“Have you asked Sheev what he wants with her?” Ben asked. Sometimes if he pressed for details Snoke would bend.

“I told you, it’s above your pay grade,” Snoke said shortly.

“Well, I didn’t agree to traffic, I agreed to transport, and maybe I want to know more, so figure it out and get back to me, before I leave The fucking Order,” Ben said, hanging up.

Rey was looking at him wide-eyed so he clarified, “I just want to get you some answers.”

“Thanks,” she said, weakly. “What’s The Order?”

Ben didn’t mean to say the name of it, but it was too late now. “The Order is everyone on this one guy’s payroll. And you don’t know who else is in it. Cops probably, since no one ever searches my plane. The judges that let the dealers off…”

She twisted the blue lock bag of money in her hands. It was her job to make sure he didn’t accidentally leave it laying around somewhere--because he’d done that once, not used to carrying things.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered if anyone tries to take you,” Ben said, showing her the holstered handgun he kept under his seat, next to the life preserver, the one he had to keep tucking in his pants when she wasn’t looking for fear he’d spook her.

“Be careful! 6,800 people a year die from accidentally shooting themselves with their own gun,” she said, keeping her eye on the gun until he’d stuffed it safely back in it’s hiding spot.

Ben couldn’t help it, he laughed, because he was _expecting_ her to give him the odds. “How do you remember all of that? Why do you memorize death statistics?”

Rey propped her long legs up on the dash and shrugged. “I went through a research phase. I figured my parents died and no one knew what killed them so I would look into all the things that could have happened.” She reached down into her bag. “Speaking of which,” she said, throwing her sunscreen at him.

  
  
Ben smiled, catching it, remembering their first flight. Only three days ago. “I hate sunscreen. It smells like coconuts and it’s oily.”

“I’ll pay you,” she said peevishly, unlocking the money bag, unzipping it, and pulling out a bill, flicking it at his face. 

He smirked, catching it as she threw another one, giggling in her seat. So cute.

“Come here,” he heard himself say. 

He didn’t have a plan, but now he was thinking about their first flight. And what he’d wanted to do to her then, before she sat down.

She swallowed at his change in tone, fucking needy as hell and deep with testosterone. Pulling her feet off the dash, she unbuckled and removed her headphones, standing next to him and waiting to see what he told her to do next. 

He could pull her into his lap and kiss her. Or they could go in the back, let the plane fly itself to Spokane. But all he really wanted to do was recreate that moment. He unbuttoned her shorts and slid them down her legs with her underwear, watching her blush and hold onto the top of his seat, looking down at him as he looked up.

  
  
Sliding his headphones to his neck, so he could hear her in case she said something, he licked his lips and raised his hand to her leg. Like the first time.

She separated her feet a little, either to get a better stance, or because she knew where this was going. 

He held her legs still while he turned and planted his feet on either side of her, his face almost even with her pussy. But she didn’t back away. He held her leg with his left hand, behind her knee, and raised his right hand again, slipping his pointer and middle fingers straight into her like before, still looking at her face. 

She opened her mouth again, inhaling, but he couldn’t hear anything over the engines.

She was already slick and warm, every nerve in his fingers reporting back. He pressed on her clit with his thumb as he curved his fingers inside her, rubbing her front wall, watching her face light up and her eyes squint closed. He would have thought she was in pain if her head hadn’t tilted back. 

His dick was straining against his jeans but this wasn’t about him. He’d gotten off on the beach and he was pretty sure she hadn’t. He rubbed harder. Faster. And her noises turned to whines as she spread her legs and set a knee up on his leg, one foot still on the floor, her shoes still on. 

She gripped his shoulder, almost desperately, and he worked his fingers harder, adding a third finger when he felt her slick drip down his palm. 

Her hand fisted his shirt and her legs started shaking and he lost control, leaning forward and _licking_ her there, even though it was embarrassing because he wanted to do it. 

She grabbed his hair for support, pulling too hard, but pushing too, wanting more, and she didn’t have to tell him twice. 

His fingers found the place that made her whines longer and he pressed his tongue on her as hard as he could, the taste of her making him close to coming in his pants. 

Rey stopped crying out. She stopped gasping. She was holding her breath and he knew this was it as his tongue circled her, as he sucked, unashamed now because it was working, and filled her with his fingers, her slick traveling down his burning forearm muscles.

She exhaled and _he_ groaned, because he could feel her orgasm reverberate through her body and onto his tongue. He could feel her walls constrict on his fingers and he remembered what it felt like to have his cock deep inside her. 

He grabbed her legs, so small in his hands, and buried his face in her stomach as he came in his fucking pants, groaning and jerking and pulling her tight, her hands in his hair, and clouds shooting by.

\-------------------------------------

“No, you stay here, it’s not safe to come on the actual drop offs with me,” Ben said, when they had taxied the plane to their temporary hangar in Spokane, Washington. The weather was so different here than Seattle, dry and arid.

Rey wanted to come with him, but he didn’t know if The Order would try anything, since his phone call with Snoke an hour ago. They might try to nab her and take her to Sheev for the reward. Or they might not know she was worth anything and just be interested in her. As a woman. And fuck that.

Rey looked annoyed.

“Promise me?” Ben said, pushing the stairs up to her side of the plane in case she needed to use the airfield’s bathroom while he was gone. He didn’t want her breaking a leg.

She sighed and he took that as a yes. 

He kissed her bare leg in apology, backing down the stairs and closing her door.

Ben didn’t need to take a Lyft to the drop off, he could walk there, only a mile and it felt good to stretch his legs. D Star Tattoo Parlor’s lights were on and he could see customers inside, but he went through the alley, knocking on the metal fire door and letting himself in. 

There were three contacts here. He didn't know any of their names, but he recognized all of their faces. They took the package straight to their back closet where they kept tattoo ink and supplies and came back with a roll of cash. He counted it in front of them, shielded from the customers by a black curtain, looking up when he heard the ding of the front door.

Rey stepped in, seeing him through the gap in the curtains.

“Shit,” Ben said aloud.

“She with you?” The bald one asked, the one who was in charge, judging by the fact that he handled the money.

“Yes, everything seems good, I’ll get her and go,” Ben said, making eye contact with her to let her know she was in big trouble. She lifted her purse a little bit, standing at the door, as if she had something for him.

“I don’t think so, bro,” Baldy said. “She came in the front entrance.”

Rey was jeopardizing their front. And it looked strange enough that she was young and alone. Ben stuffed his wallet in his back pocket with difficulty after filling it with the cash. It took him one second to realize he didn’t have his gun in the back of his jeans. That he’d left it in the plane. 

Maybe that’s why Rey had followed him. She was bringing it to him.

“She’s not leaving here without a tattoo, bro,” Baldy grinned. “And she’s gotta pay for it too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clue to the tattoo is in the moodboard...


	5. The wolves are watching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Somebody turned the lights out  
>  The wolves are watching  
> This world will eat your heart out  
> The wolves are watching**
> 
> Wolves by MISSIO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Doing Ben’s perspective twice in a row, then Rey’s twice in a row. I do what I want!

“Hey, I hope you’re feeling go-with-the-flow today,” Ben said, pulling Rey down onto one of the waiting couches. 

“You know _me_ ,” she said, shakily, watching him drag a tattoo example book closer on the coffee table. 

The staff were back by the black curtain, chuckling at Ben’s predicament. One artist was still working on a customer’s full sleeve and the sound of the gun was drowning out their conversation.

“Don’t try to pass me the gun or anything,” he warned as she set her purse between the two of them. “You shouldn’t have come.” 

Rey pretended to look through the book. He was dreading having to tell her she needed to _actually_ choose one. 

“This is cool,” she said, before he opened his mouth. She was pointing to a simple ampersand. 

“The ‘and’ symbol means a continuous journey or a close bond with someone,” she read to him in a whisper.

“Let’s both get it,” he said, quickly, taking advantage of her interest. Maybe this experience didn’t need to be traumatic.

“Really?” She asked, her hazel eyes finding his, evidently thinking he meant it as a romantic gesture. 

That consideration hadn’t really occurred to him yet, thinking only of appeasing the drug dealers and getting the hell out of there, but he smiled, happy to make her happy.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s a tattoo, it’ll hurt,” Ben said, worried about his own pain threshold now. He didn’t have any tattoos. He didn’t like needles. He didn’t even get the flu shot.

  
Standing with the book, Rey held her hand out and pulled him up. “That depends on where you get it,” she said, provocatively.

The two available tattoo artists were both Ben’s contacts—the ones who weren’t Baldy. They set Ben and Rey up on tables next to each other, on their stomachs facing one another, close enough that they reached their arms out to high five when the transfer paper was off and the tattoo guns started buzzing.

Both artists objected simultaneously.

“Hey!”

“Yeah, no moving.”

Cringing as the gun made contact, Rey squeaked out, “Feels like scratches.” 

They had both decided on their lower calves and it felt more like _a million bee stings_ to Ben, even though they told him that area wouldn’t hurt.

Rey saw him wincing and reached out slowly—so her body didn’t move—and took his hand. They laid silently for half an hour, her artist finishing first, but she didn’t get up, waiting for Ben. When his tattoo gun turned off, Ben and Rey swung their legs off the tables and peeked at their calves, red and swollen, with the black ampersand, her’s smaller than his.

“You can shower, but no swimming or bathing for two to three weeks,” Rey’s artist told them, lighting a cigarette.

“I love it,” Rey said, sincerely, smiling up at him as he paid. 

Ben tried not to grin ear to ear. It wasn’t really the vibe he used for interactions with contacts.

Baldy looked at her, then back at Ben, giving him a wink with his change. 

\------------------------------------

Rey nailed the takeoff and landing, even though she needed a pep talk. Understandable, since it was dark by the time they reached Montana and that made depth perception difficult.

  
  
She held his hand as he walked her to the Wingate hotel, the closest one to the airfield.

“I don’t think I’ve held hands with anyone since I was like five,” Ben admitted. He thought he might remember his mother pulling him around, pointing things out to him, walking the trail that skirted Vancouver.

“Your dad?” She asked, always pushing that button.

“No, my mom,” Ben said, continuing when she gave him a questioning look. “She’s fine, she lives in Canada. My parents split up when my dad switched from smuggling stolen shit to drugs.”

“That’s sad,” she muttered.

“Yeah. He regretted it. But he was too proud to fix things,” Ben said. “I used to only see my dad in the summers, but then I started going with him on trips when I graduated high school. So I just kind of fell into this,” he explained. “I never wanted to be a transporter. It just kind of passed on to me. When my dad started using and he couldn’t fly.”

Rey squeezed his hand, hearing the anger in his voice, probably putting two and two together about his father’s overdose.

“This’ll be my last drop off, then I’m out. And we can go back to the island, if you’re cool with that,” Ben said. They were close to the hotel and it was getting late. They could part ways here and he could deliver the package to the contact, get the money, and be back in no time.

“I’ll go wherever you go,” she said, seriously, craning her neck to look at him as he stopped under a streetlight. 

Ben smiled down at her, “I’ll be back in a couple hours.”

He didn’t want to let go of her hand, so he gave her knuckles a kiss and went to turn, but she held his hand tighter and he turned back around, knowing she wanted a real kiss. They stood under the flickering streetlight, two twisting shadows, kissing a deep promise of soon, of later, of tonight, the package in one hand and Rey in the other.

Finally satisfied, she released him and they parted. 

\---------------------------------

An hour later, package free, wallet full, Ben pulled out his phone to hail a Lyft, seeing a brand new text from Snoke.

He read the words ‘camera in your plane’ and started running.

Because Snoke knew. He knew that Ben had no intention of bringing her. That he’d talked about The Order and changed his mind and touched her. Repeatedly. And that if Snoke was leaving messages, it was because he was confident The Order was going to get Rey, now, in Montana, and it didn’t matter if Ben knew it or not.

He ran, gasping, through the automatic doors of the hotel, up to the front desk clerk. “Did you see a girl come in? Rey? White hoodie?”

The clerk shook his head, and Ben was already running out the door. 

He turned his back for one goddamn hour!

Lungs bursting from the run back to the airfield, Ben pulled the plane out of the hangar, trying not to chant ‘they have Rey’ over and over in his head. He skipped the stairs and jumped, pulling himself into the front seat and clawing around for the light to find the hidden camera. It was hard to locate, a pinhole in the fabric of the roof, which he tore wide, finding the rest, just the size of a button, crushing it in his fingers.

Taxiing to a runway--despite the air traffic personnel telling him to wait--Ben’s pulse raced with adrenaline. 

He didn’t need to wait. He’d refueled. He’d paid. 

They had Rey.

He turned off his radio and began takeoff, building speed, seeing lights incoming from above. Someone was landing on the same runway. He took his chances. He could make it. The other plane turned--the pilot not up for a game of chicken--as Ben lifted off, stowing the landing gear, and punching Sheev’s address into the GPS. Bozeman, Montana was only a ten minute flight away.

\-------------------------------

Ben landed on Sheev’s private runway, seeing lights on in the house, imposing, with a view of the river bank from its walls of windows. As if he had nothing to hide.  
  
  
Ben had been here dozens of times to drop off the lock bags of money. Sheev practically had his own squadron, seven planes at least were always parked next to his runway. Tonight would be the first time he walked more than five feet from his.  
  
  
A member of the security team came down to investigate him and Ben pulled his gun, “Get down. On your stomach,” relieved when the man laid down, putting his hands on his head. Ben didn’t have handcuffs or anything, so he just took away the guard’s gun. “Move and I will shoot you,” he warned, shocked that he meant it, before running across Sheev’s patio and through the unlocked glass door. 

“Beeeen!” he heard Rey’s scared scream from upstairs. He was glad she saw him land and approach, and that she was here, but she had also just alerted the house to his position.

Like cockroaches out of the woodwork, the security team descended on him from all sides, more than he’d ever seen man the house. Six, in total.

“I just want to talk,” he lied, setting both guns at his feet, trying to read their intent, but they seemed to be holding off, waiting for orders.

An old man was making his way down the stairs, wearing a house robe, laughing to himself. “Ha! I hope you’re not here expecting payment. Since you didn’t complete the simple task assigned to you,” he said.

“Where’s Rey, _Sheev_?” Ben demanded, even though he was in no position to make demands. The best he could hope for was a little mercy and some answers, all hope of a rescue mission slowly disintegrating. He even felt a little stupid, shouting in this man’s living room.

“She’s _home,_ ” Sheev said smoothly and Ben froze, recognizing the voice. 

“So who are you, Sheev or Snoke?” Ben asked, lowering his arms, tired of holding them in the air in surrender.

The old man smiled at Ben’s recognition. “It’s Snoke now. Sheev no longer ‘officially exists’,” he said, using air quotes.

“What does that mean?” Ben scoffed, his eyes on the stairs, hoping to see Rey walk down them unharmed.

“Sadly, you’re about to find out,” the man said coldly, catching Ben’s glance to the staircase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Knights of Ren circling Ben vibes


	6. What’s the point in fighting for a happy ever after?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **What's the point in fighting for a happy ever after?  
>  The past keeps haunting the future I imagine  
> All I ever wanted was a little peace and quiet  
> Just color in the lines, and you'll get it like they promise  
> If you bite the hand, get louder and defiant  
> Then you’ll see how quickly they come making a deposit**
> 
> Identity by grandson

Rey stood quietly, barely breathing so she could strain to hear what was happening in the living room downstairs.

Ben said something in his deep voice, the words coming through the wood like a mumble. Then her grandfather responded.

_Grandfather._

That felt weird to say, even in her own head, but that’s who he was. 

She had come here willingly. 

Well, they had tricked her. They told her Ben had abandoned her after trying to extort her grandfather for more money.

Her grandfather said that he had hired a private detective to find his son, tracking him to Greece, the trail leading to Rey instead. Ben was just supposed to deliver her.

Then, when she arrived, heartbroken, her grandfather had shown her to her new room for a nap, promising that he would explain everything soon. 

She heard the door lock from the outside, stood, and watched Ben’s plane land through the large window. 

If he _had_ attempted to extort them, he wouldn’t have come.

Why had she believed them so easily? Was it because it felt like no one could love her equally, as much as she loved Ben? Not even Ben, who was so sweet and good and trapped. He couldn’t love her this much. Because she had to pull him back to kiss her goodbye, when he seemed so eager to get away from her the last time. 

But maybe he was eager to put his past behind him. To do the drop and get the money and take her back to the island.

She heard thumping and she tensed, listening, trying to figure out what it was. 

Oh my god. They were beating him. They were beating him. 

Rey ran backwards, away from the door and the sound, planting her feet, and running full force at the door, hitting it with her shoulder. She crashed into the hallway, sliding several feet laying on the door itself.

The thumping stopped as she ran down the stairs, weaving past her grandfather and over to Ben, crumpled in the floor, bloody and cradling his ribs. 

The guards backed away as she kneeled in front of him, too scared to touch him because he was injured badly.

  
He looked happy to see her and that broke her heart. Because he wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t a fool. Doubting him.  
  


Crying, she begged her grandfather, barely words, just garbled sounds of fear and love and panic.

He raised a hand to calm her, tilting his head as if he was growing a heart.

“Aw, Rey, sweetie, having compassion for your kidnapper--it’s just confounding. But, he’s young and young people make mistakes. Since he treated you well and you’re here now, I’ll let him go,” he said with an amused smirk. 

Rey had a bad feeling, but she was going to hold him to that. “I’m going to watch. I’m going to stay right here and make sure he takes off.”

Her grandfather nodded, “Ben, I’m sure you know you’re fired and I forbid you to see Rey again. I’ll give you one more package to deliver and you can keep the earnings. Consider it your _severance_.”

Ben spat on the white carpet, a glob of blood, as if to say “fuck you,” but his mouth was too swollen.

“Thank you!” Rey said, before Ben ruined his chance of getting away. She stood and gave her grandfather a hug, feeling him rumble with laughter.

One guard helped Ben stand while another came up from the basement, handing Ben a package, before they turned him towards the door. 

Rey wanted to say goodbye, watching them practically drag Ben outside, but she didn’t dare test her grandfather’s patience by running to him. Slowly, she walked up to the glass, watching them force Ben into the pilot’s seat of his red and black plane. She heard the echo of the cockpit door slamming.

Her anxiety disintegrated as she watched him taxi to the runway and take off, heading West, probably turning on his peaceful playlist. 

“He’s a good boy,” her grandfather said, putting a hand on her shoulder. 

Why did _everything_ that came out of his mouth sound like a lie?

“What was in the package?” Rey asked, watching the guards filing downstairs into the basement.

“Just, the usual,” her grandfather said, looking out at the starry sky, enjoying his fucking view.

“I don’t believe you,” Rey said, running to the steps and skimming them into the brightly-lit basement, freezing when she saw what could only be described as an arsenal, packed and crowded, all the way up to the staircase.

A guard held his hands out, as if she was two seconds from making the room implode. The table in the middle was covered in wires and what looked like white clay bricks wrapped in Seran Wrap. 

She was trying to read their faces when the whole house shook, like an earthquake, but no one seemed surprised but her. The sound reverberated, making the hair stand up on the back of her neck.

  
She closed her eyes, feeling cold...and betrayed.

Ben. 

Her hand came up and down, landing on a crate of actual grenades, sitting innocuously, like a box of Christmas ornaments. She grabbed one, pulling the pin out and holding the lever down tight--like Hollywood had taught her--finally seeing a look of concern on everyone’s face, the look they didn’t give when Ben’s plane exploded. When they sent him on a transport trip with a bomb.

She walked backwards up the stairs, ignoring her grandfather’s protests from the top. 

“...just like your father. Ungrateful. Unhinged. He and his wife drowned in Greece, leaving you with nothing. I was going to give you everything. Just hand it to me.”

“You killed Ben!” Rey screamed, her voice breaking, holding the grenade in his face, just as tall as he was.

“You barely knew him,” he replied, not denying it. “He was right on track to being a lonely junkie like his father. You would have had no future with him.”

Her thoughts were just one loud scream, but she spoke, “ Do you know what I am without him? I’m nothing! He _was_ my family! He _was_ my story!”

Why was she still talking? She had no desire to let them live one more second. Every breath of life was stolen. Every second was a second without justice. 

She dropped the grenade down the stairs and ran, grabbing her purse and feeling the explosion toss her like a doll onto the lawn. She slid and rolled, hearing the windows shattering and the second floor collapse onto the first. Her ears were ringing and the force had blown her shoes right off, but she ran down the hill straight up to a two-person plane and jumped up onto the wing, pulling the pilot door open and seeing the keys in the seat. “Yes!”

Jamming the key in and turning the ignition, she realized she’d never done that part before, but everything else she remembered, even when things were slightly different colors and places.

The heat from the blaze made her left cheek warmer as she taxied forward and she realized her door was still open. Closing it, she tried to clear her head of grief and revenge. She needed to be able to think if she was going to do this. Wiping at her eyes and taking a deep, ragged breath, she put on the pilot’s headphones and pushed on the push knob, picking up speed. 

She was so scared, when she began pulling on the steering wheel, she twisted in her seat and vomited, right there between the seats, but her hands kept pushing, increasing the pressure. She wiped her mouth and her wheels left the tarmac.

Before she hit cloud cover, she looked back down, seeing two fires on the ground. One, her grandfather’s house. The other, Ben’s plane.


	7. I've been awake in every state line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **I've been awake in every state line  
>  Dyin' to make it last us a lifetime  
> Tryin' to shake that it's all on an incline  
> Find me a way  
> I'll be yours in a landslide**
> 
> State lines by Novo Amor

After Rey stowed the landing gear, it took her five minutes to figure out the GPS, but she still didn’t have an exact location for Ben’s island. She entered in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve and hoped she would be able to find the L-shaped island.

She didn’t know how to put the plane in cruise flight, so she held the steering wheel, gripping it too hard, knuckles white, expecting a cloud to make the plane pitch or something.

What if she didn’t have enough fuel to reach the island, or what if it was still dark when she got there and she circled for too long, searching for it? What was keeping another plane from simply crossing her path and crashing into her? What if there was a lightning storm? Should she try to fly around it or should she go over it or do planes just fly straight through them?

As bad as these thoughts were, twisting her stomach into knots, they were saving her from thinking about that second fire.

Somewhere over the mountain range that separated Eastern and Western Washington, Rey went into a white out, snow clouds. She squinted, terrified she was going to hit a mountain any second, remembering how the Olympic mountains suddenly jutted up towards the plane. 

She’d been slowly gaining altitude with the landscape and decided to keep going, just to be safe, screaming when her theory was confirmed and she suddenly skirted over snow-covered pines. 

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing!” She screamed to the empty cabin. 

Rey went up to 15,000 feet, trying not to hyperventilate, but after an hour, she realized the reason she couldn’t breathe was _because_ she’d gone too high.

Well past those mountains, she dropped back down to 4,000, but stupidly had to go back up again as she neared the ones on the coast. At least she could see those coming.

She was drowsy but around 5am visibility improved and she got her second wind, seeing cars and houses, wishing she could talk to any human and tell them how scared she was. As the fuel supply gauge approached empty, she overlapped the destination dot on the GPS and turned the plane more west, looking for islands and seeing only water.

“Please please please,” she said, sitting up straight, trying to see all around her.

“I’m going to drown like my parents,” Rey said, when she didn’t see anything on the horizon, her fuel on E. 

She should have flown to Seattle first, but she was worried they’d take her plane away and she’d never get back to the island.

She reached under her seat and found the life vest, setting it in her lap, preparing for the worst, when she saw an island to her right and turned the plane, excited.

But it wasn’t the right one, small and round. Then she passed right over the L-shaped island and screamed, “Cove with a boat!” 

She turned the plane but wasn’t lined up with the runway and circled again, cursing because every mistake was bad when she was running on fumes.

Finally lined up, she dipped the nose, slowed her speed, and let the plane glide in. “Oh holy fuck,” she said to herself, just to hear a voice.

Almost to the short runway, she screamed, realizing she had completely forgotten to lower the landing gear, the plane crashing belly-first into the concrete, sliding fast, turning sideways, the wings shredding off on the trees. 

The side of her head hit the window and-

—————————————————

“Have you ever thought that if you throw a rock into the ocean, you’re probably the last human being to touch that rock until the end of time?”

Rey threw a rock as hard as she could, already searching for another before the first hit the water. The sand lodged between her fingernails, but she just kept finding more and throwing them as if she had a target, slowly destroying the rock population on Ben’s island.

Rey’s temple had stopped bleeding, but now she was worried because she forgot she wasn’t supposed to get her tattoo wet. If she wanted to preserve it, she needed to be more careful, so she could see it and think of Ben. She washed her hands in a wave and backed up to the dry shore, swiping at it with her too-long sleeve.

She had taken her duffel bag with all of her belongings to her grandfather's. Now she only had a closet full of Ben’s clothes and a lock bag full of money which was still in her purse. 

When she landed that morning, she’d hit around 5:30am and woken up around 9am. Walking into the house, she’d stripped off her clothes piece by piece on her bleary trek to the bathroom, every article covered in dust from the explosion. After showering, she put on one of Ben’s big sweaters, even though it was warm out, feeling cold chills and maybe still in shock.

She didn’t have any shoes so she walked down to the beach barefoot, almost laughing when she saw the plane again, laying on it’s side with it’s wings cropped in half. She felt tired but was afraid to sleep for fear she had a concussion and would never wake up. 56,000 people a year.

Straddling the driftwood log, Rey rocked back and forth, trying to stay awake. She was a beach stone, drifting down. Because Ben was the last person to touch her and she wanted him to be the last. No one would ever touch her again.

Ben was the house. 

New and full of promise and unfinished.


	8. Epilogue: Sometimes all I think about is you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **I just wonder what you're dreaming of  
>  When you sleep and smile so comfortable  
> I just wish that I could give you that  
> That look that's perfectly un-sad  
> Sometimes all I think about is you**
> 
> Heat Waves by Glass Animals

“Holy fuck! She did it!” Ben shouted, seeing the tail of one of Sheev’s planes peeking through the pines of the island. Up until that moment, he wasn’t sure if she was alive.

“Yes, fucking YES!” He cried, lowering the landing gear and lining up, his smile fading as he saw the state of the plane. Lopsided, wings barely hanging on. White scratch marks down the runway.

No no no.

She’d crash landed.

Ben glided in, slamming on the brakes and dodging the wreck, the plane identical-looking to the one he’d stolen too. 

He’d seen a plane go over when he was running back to Sheev’s, and, when he saw the fireball where the house used to be, he could only hope that it had been Rey. She didn’t have a phone, so he just had to trust she was going to the island, that she could fly, and find it.

Ripping his headphones off, he gingerly jumped to the wing and down to the ground, his ankle twisted from hitting the ground hard last night after jumping from his plane, too low to the ground for a parachute to slow him much.

He skipped awkwardly to the cockpit of the downed plane, seeing blood on the window.

“Fuck! Rey!” He shouted, opening the door and looking inside, but it was empty. He turned to the house, hoping to see her on the deck, but remembering she slept like the dead. Maybe she didn’t hear him land.

Limping as fast as he could go, he used his arms on the railings to help him get up the stairs. At the deck, he saw the sliding glass door cracked open, another positive sign since he hadn’t left it like that. 

Sliding the door open, the little rise in covers that was Rey sat up, screaming and kicking her blankets off, rolling out of the bed in nothing but his sweater and socks, pouncing on him.

He knew his face looked terrible from the beat down he’d gotten because she avoided his busted lip, kissing his neck and shoulders and cheeks, crying and hugging him and screaming right in his face, but he didn’t mind, grinning ear to ear, as much as that hurt his lip.

“You’re alive!”

“You found an uncharted island!”

“I crashed the plane!”

“I knew it was a fucking bomb, I jumped!”

“It’s amazing you survived!”  
  
  


“Not really, I used a parachute.”

“What took you so long?”

“I had to stop in Seattle for fuel.”

“I thought about that. I should have done that.”

“You blew up The Order.”

“Yeah, they deserved it.”

“How many people die a year in explosions caused by 16-year-old girls?”

“At least seven,” Rey laughed.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and they curled up in the bed, flipping the covers back over them. 

“Let’s never leave here again,” she said, still smiling as his hands traced her back under his over-sized sweater.

“Well, we have to leave sometimes,” Ben said, practically. 

“Okay, just for groceries, if I can come too,” Rey conceded, pulling his arm over her.


End file.
